The production of antibodies and their storage is often a costly and lengthy process. In fact, development of a single antibody therapeutic agent can take years. Yet the use of multiple, different therapeutic antibodies are often necessary or desirable for the effective treatment of patients following a disease, outbreak or a bio-terrorist assault. The threat of a pandemic attack is real, and efforts to stockpile agents to combat such an outbreak have been attempted with some well underway. However, producing and stockpiling enough antibody to protect large populations is challenging. The shelf life of antibodies is often relatively short, and so antibodies have to be periodically replaced. As a result, developing and producing multiple antibodies that can bind to different targets (e.g. microbial and viral pathogens, toxins, cancer cells) for improved therapeutic effect is often a difficult task because it involves storing multiple antibodies for each pathogen or toxin.
Hence, a need exists for a cost effective and efficient way to provide antibody treatments to a large quantity of people. A further need exists for antibody therapeutics that are easier to develop and produce, and have a longer shelf life. Yet, a further need exists for antibody therapeutics that bind to multiple targets on the same disease agent, as well as different disease agents.